Link of the day

Donate Now to support NEADS! We need your support! Donations are tax deductible and you will receive a charitable tax receipt for 100% of your gift.

Success in STEM

Dr. Andrew Cuddihy

Dr. Andrew Cuddihy is currently a junior faculty member and research
scientist at the University of California Los Angeles, where he does
research involving stem cells. Before obtaining this position, he did
four years of post doctoral work in Melbourne, Australia, and two in
Toronto. Before this, he obtained a B.Sc in Biochemistry from Queen’s
University and a PhD in Cancer Research from McGill University.

Andrew went deaf at the age of four, but he was integrated into
regular-stream classrooms from the beginning of his education. As a
result of his post-lingual deafness, he has excellent lip reading and
language skills, and so has always been able to function well even in
somewhat unaccommodating environments.

He realized his passion for science and scientific research in high
school, and immediately began to fill his schedule with as many
math and science courses as possible. The encouragement he
received from his family, friends, and educators was universal, and
Andrew has always been more than happy to let his CV and the
quality of his publications speak for him.

The challenges he encountered throughout his education were
purely physical, and mainly centred around the difficulty of reading
a professor’s lips in a large lecture theatre or while the professor was
turned away. Initially, he attempted to make it through university
without any accommodations, but after some frustration, he
decided to make use of in-class note takers. This arrangement wasn’t
ideal, as many note takers’ personal interpretations of a professor’s
words can be almost unintelligible. Eventually, Andrew worked
with the Queen’s University Office for Students with Disabilities to
develop a piece of software called C-Note, which allows two-way
communication in class between a note taker and a deaf student.
When this arrangement had been worked out, Andrew was able to
make it through his undergraduate and doctorate programs with
much less difficulty.

His advice to students is to take advantage of every available
accommodation. Education is a costly endeavour, and you should
do everything you can to shift the odds of doing well in your
favour. He also advises students to network as much as possible with
people in their fields, to ensure having contacts and being able to
find employment down the road. “Let your merits and academic
accomplishments speak for themselves,” advises Andrew. “You may
be a student or researcher with a disability, but the disability isn’t
what you’re trying to advertise.”

Andrew hopes to work for a biotech or pharmaceutical company
at some point in his career, but so far he has found that industry
somewhat more challenging to break into than academia.